Chapter Twenty/A Multitudinous Great Crowd - Continue

 Worldly commentators have interpreted this great crowd to be fleshly non-Jews converted to Christianity or to be heaven- bound Christian martyrs. Even the Bible Students in the past regarded them as a secondary heavenly class, as noted in 1986 in Volume I of Studies in the Scriptures, The Divine Plan of the Ages: "They lose the prize of the throne and the divine nature, but will finally reach birth as spirit beings of an order lower than the divine nature. Though these are truly consecrated, they are overcome by the worldly spirit to such an extent that they fail to render their lives in sacrifice." and as late as 1930, the thought was expressed in Light, Book One: "Those who make up this great crowd fail to respond to the invitation to become the zealous witness for the Lord."  They were described as a self-righteous group that had a knowledge of the truth but did little about preaching it,. They were to go to heaven as a secondary class that would not share in reigning with Christ.

Next time: Chapter Twenty/A Multitudinous Great Crowd - Continue

From the jw.org publications